Free Republic

John Boehner is back. The former House speaker will spend late July and all of August on a cross-country bus trip raising money and campaigning for House Republicans, according to multiple sources familiar with his plans. The trip — on Boehner’s bus, dubbed “Freedom One” — will begin after the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and end Labor Day weekend. Boehner has done these trips for years, but it is especially significant that the former speaker — who left Congress after being targeted by House conservatives — is spending his summer campaigning less than a year after leaving office.

Every May, governors revise their state budget plans and send a final proposal to the Legislature, a process that's designed to ensure that lawmakers use the most current information on the economy and tax revenues. And it's the economy that will likely take center stage in Friday morning's unveiling of Gov. Jerry Brown's new budget. Revenues collected from personal income taxes missed their target in April by about $1 billion, according to one preliminary analysis. At the same time, Democrats in the Legislature have urged Brown to do more to fund programs for struggling California families . How the governor...

The First Daughters club is a small one. And while there are certainly advantages to growing up in the White House, living out your formative years in the public eye is an experience that very few can ever fully understand. So you know former First Daughter Jenna Bush Hager meant it when she said, "They need none!" when asked what advice she had for the Obama girls as they prepare to leave the White House. "They are such remarkable girls—they've done such a terrific job," Hager continued in a recent interview with Time magazine about her new book, Our Great...

As Donald Trump held closed-door meetings Thursday with top Republican leaders, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois cautioned that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee's "radical" and "extreme" positions will pose a challenge for Republican candidates in Illinois, including U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk. Kirk, who is up for re-election, has said he will support his party's presidential nominee — even if it is Trump — but will not attend the GOP's national convention in Cleveland in July. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is not on the ballot in November, said he will not attend the party's presidential nominating convention — nor...

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump is slamming Jeb Bush for refusing to back him, saying he isn't a "man of honor." Trump criticized his 2016 primary rival for breaking the pledge he signed last year vowing to support the eventual Republican nominee. “Jeb Bush dishonored his pledge. I mean he dishonored his pledge,” Trump said on the "Mike Gallagher Show" on Wednesday, as first reported by BuzzFeed News. “He signed a pledge, and, if you remember, they all wanted me to sign it, so I signed it. But that pledge is a guarantee, there’s no outs. It doesn’t say,...

In cities across America, the middle class is hollowing out. A widening wealth gap is moving more households into either higher- or lower-income groups in major metro areas, with fewer remaining in the middle, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. In nearly one-quarter of metro areas, middle-class adults no longer make up a majority, the Pew analysis found. That’s up from fewer than 10 percent of metro areas in 2000. Pew defines the middle class as households with incomes between two-thirds of median income and twice the median, adjusted for household size and the local...

South Carolina senator and former Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham has been a sharp and frequent critic of his party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, but on Wednesday he changed his tune slightly. While saying that he still cannot support Trump for president, Graham however said that he sees some good ideas in Trump’s proposals and believes the former reality television star could win the White House in November. But it won’t happen unless he changes the way he presents himself to the public, Graham added, because “crazy loses to crooked.”

It seems hard to bury the notion that Ohio Gov. John Kasich will end up as Donald Trump’s running mate. Kasich, for one, has said there is “zero chance” he will accept the No. 2 position on the Republican ticket coming out of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. “Never. No chance,” his campaign spokesman said

Rep. Barbara Lee and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are rarely shy about taking stands on issues, except when it comes to the question “Bernie or Hillary?” Lee and Pelosi are the only two elected Bay Area Democrats who have not publicly endorsed either Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Even Pelosi’s daughter Christine Pelosi is backing Clinton, and appeared at the opening of Clinton’s new San Francisco field office Monday. Their rare reticence is rooted in the raw political calculus of not wanting to alienate the partisans on either side, which could result in...

Neil deGrasse Tyson, who ranks right behind Bill Nye as the White House’s most respected scientist, humorously dedicated his large, pulsing brain to the topic of political endorsements on Monday, so who was keeping an eye on the cosmos? That would be DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who praised Attorney General Loretta Lynch while accusing North Carolina Republicans of having powers that put most comic book super villains to shame.

COLUMBIA — Gov. Nikki Haley, one of the most popular figures in the Republican Party, hasn’t decided if she will attend the Republican National Convention in July. Haley said Monday she’s waiting until South Carolina’s 2016 legislative session ends four weeks from now before she decides whether she’ll take part July 18 to 21 in Cleveland. “We’ve got time,” Haley said. “That’s not until July.” If she skips the convention, Haley would be joining a growing list of Republican leaders who are opting out of attending — accentuating the deepening divide within the GOP as New York billionaire Donald Trump...

The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on Friday released new photos of the president responding to the 9/11 attacks.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed paying for his proposals to transform large sectors of the government and the economy mainly through increased taxes on wealthy Americans. A pair of new studies published Monday suggests Sanders would not come up with enough money using this approach, and that the poor and the middle class would have to pay more than Sanders has projected in order to fund his ideas. The studies, published jointly by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and the Urban Institute in Washington, concludes that Sanders's plans are short a total of more than $18 trillion over a decade....

A Manhattan federal judge approved search warrants for at least three locations, and the raids were carried out two weeks ago, a law-enforcement source said. The feds were able to secure the warrant for Howe’s out-of-state home by arguing that he conducted business within the Southern District of New York, which covers Manhattan, The Bronx and the northern suburbs, the source said. Howe and Percoco, who in January began working as a top exec at Madison Square Garden, are at the center of a probe that Cuomo’s office has said involves “questions of improper lobbying and undisclosed conflicts of interest...

Donald Trump’s coronation as the GOP nominee will present plenty of opportunities for Republican amnesia and short-sightedness. The easiest thing to do, if you’re a conservative Republican, is to dismiss Trump as an aberration, as if his candidacy emerged out of a whirlwind. But that’s the work of revisionist historians, not honest observers of the last decade of Republican politics. Consider this recent tweet by Meghan McCain, the daughter of John McCain and now a commentator for Fox News: I hope history remembers those who gave up their conservative principles for the cult of personality and celebrity. And those who...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has a word of warning for her fellow Democrats: "We can’t ignore Donald Trump any longer." In a fundraising email sent Wednesday from the Democrats' campaign arm, Pelosi said she's "worried" and "disgusted" by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. She's calling for "serious help from grassroots Democrats to stop him and the Republicans" in November. Translation: send money. "He’s a formidable candidate — and a serious threat to our country," Pelosi said on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). "It’s up to us to make sure Trump doesn’t become our next President."...

I’ve been saying for months that Donald Trump is the George McGovern of the GOP, the fractious leader who so alienated the elders of his party that they deserted him in droves, handing the election to his opponent. We’re already seeing the signs. Clinton has begun casting her candidacy in recent days as a cry to unify a divided country. After a series of victories last week, which all but ensured she will capture her party’s nomination, Clinton called on Democrats, independents and what she called “thoughtful Republicans” to back her bid.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday enacted California’s most significant new tobacco regulations in decades, signing laws that will place tight restrictions on use of the increasingly popular e-cigarette and make California the second state to raise its smoking age to 21. Brown signed five closely watched bills, which will also expand smoking restrictions in the workplace and on school properties. California now joins jurisdictions like Hawaii, New York City and San Francisco that have bumped the tobacco-buying age to 21 in an effort to block young people’s route to obtaining tobacco. But Brown vetoed one measure that would have allowed...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid vows that a Democratic takeover of the Senate is fairly certain in the November elections. Discussing the race for president, Reid said he was confident that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton would win the party's nomination and then the general election. He stressed her intelligence and ability to grasp the issues on a wide variety of subjects. Reid harshly criticized Republican front-runner Donald Trump, saying that he "can't imagine how the establishment Republicans feel about somebody who’s about as far from anything that anyone believes in as Donald Trump. I can’t imagine this man being the...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has received more than $7,000 worth of gifts since he took office in January 2015, mostly modest trinkets and items from well-wishers after the governor made his cancer diagnosis public. The gifts range from a $1 Livestrong bracelet to a $500 membership at Baltimore’s posh members-only Center Club, according to a filing with the State Ethics Commission. Hogan even reported two rosaries blessed at the Vatican, given to him and his wife by Pope Francis in Washington. The disclosure also shows the outpouring of support for the governor after he announced in June that he...